Evaluation, looking back

As I was buying a new pair of black running shoes one day, I hesitated and commented to the young sales assistant that with my all black leggings and top there was a danger I would end up looking like a Ninja. (For the record I am a woman in my 50’s) He paused, and then said, very seriously “ I think that would be a good look”.

So, in my adopted Ninja persona, I feel that I have enrolled myself on the art equivalent of a Ninja School when I embarked on Visual Communications. Legend has it that a Ninja learns a 1000 ways to play their part as a deadly assassin, creeping silently over roof tops, scaling walls, skilled with hundreds of different weapons. I came in with drawing and painting skills and from there have acquired an armoury of different skills, all with the aim of working in a visual medium. I feel as though I am bristling with “weaponery”, such as software skills in the Adobe suite, working with textiles, wax, models, blogging etc. My level of skills in any one area may not be that great but I still feel I have left a couple of “bodies” behind me of successful projects, most notably a community magazine which I have set up (The Duchy Vixen).

Evolution of my sketch books and possible future paths

In my previous modules I have written about the changing nature of the work I have done in my (personal) sketchbooks. They provide any interesting counterpoint to the work for the OCA. They represent the changes in my creative self at the same time as they are a continuation of that self.

Whilst completing the Illustration module, my personal sketchbooks have become more and more abstract, a marked change for me. Perhaps in reaction to the course?. Looking at my personal sketchbooks this time, they seem to bear no connection with this module at all.

Where next?

I am very unsure of my next steps……other than the fact that I have just purchased a beast of a printing press (for collagraphs, lino, etching type printing, not type). I’ve always loved printing but live a good hours drive away from the nearest print workshop, I’m looking forward to just mucking about with it.